The Voice of God

According to much of what one might read in the Bible, the Voice of God is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. The most celebrated example is that of Saul, who, having persecuted followers of Jesus, was traveling when he was knocked for a loop, being blind for several days. Other examples include the burning bush episode when God spoke like James Earl Jones with a megaphone or when God gave dictation to Moses.

Such hyperbole can be forgiven, I assume, because it is, after all, God whom we are talking about. The drama comes with the turf, so to speak, and often it may seem to others that if our God isn’t greater than your God, at least he’s significantly louder.

My experience has been exactly the opposite. I’d hardly Saul or Moses, but neither am I hard of hearing, and I have come to the conclusion in life that’s the Voice of God is not a roar to curdle the blood and blind the listener, but a whisper. The softness is in contrast to the real noise, the noise of the world around us in cell phones and brash political speeches and screaming sirens and angry protests and the explosions of bombs strapped on the chest.

It is not a once in a generation event and it is not limited to long-dead quasi-historical figures in the Bible, God’s voice is ongoing. The whispers are beneath the din of noise around us, but when you catch one of them almost like someone calling your name from someplace far away. The words seem to come not in the form of commandments, but of suggestions, a kind of ‘Excuse me, but….” that can lead to a number of things. Returning as much love as one is capable of to the angry or saddened face of a loved one; retracing your steps to give a buck to the guy on the corner with a sign, not particularly caring if it’s a scam because there’s a small chance it isn’t; sitting another minute or two longer on the back porch to simply look at the early morning gray with the etched lines of bare tree limbs against the sky and the bird calling out to a mate in hopes of an answer.

There are those who would say it’s not God at all, but one’s conscience or better nature or what have you, but, at some level, I’m not sure that isn’t just one more layer before the ultimate Source behind it. When heard, we listen. When heard, we tell ourselves that not only should we listen now, but that our lives somehow would be richer, deeper and more meaningful if we were able to keep listening throughout our lives, keep expecting, keep being ready for the same thing Elijah experienced:

And he [the Lord] said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind and earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

– I Kings 19: 11-12 (KJV)

Blessings,

Brian Robertson

Comments:

[My father died when I was 21. It was in the spring, he had his 2nd heart attack. He died during the early morning hours that most people consider night time. The ‘day’ before he died, we had visited him. When leaving the main entrance to the hospital, we kept walking away from the hospital, since we were parked in that direction.

I, to this day, don’t know why I turned around to look back at the hospital, but I did. And arched right over the hospital was a very brilliant, full sized rainbow. It was the kind that very distinctly separates the dark clouds on one side of it from the white clouds and sunshine on the other.

I did not feel any forboding. I just stood in awe, amazed that this…magnificence…was there, and if we’d have kept on walking, we’d have missed it entirely.

I don’t know if it was God or not. But I’ve often used that story in conversations to exemplify what I believe God is like. He’s there all the time, but his presence is not like a noisy gong, he just remains quietly, brilliantly BEING. All we have to do is open our eyes. And once we do, we often are stopped in our tracks, dumbfounded: How could I have missed it? The quiet strength of His being shouts louder and more impactful than any noisy gong ever could.

So, I agree, for me, too, it’s God’s whispers I hear most clearly.]

[I can think of a very serious example from my own life. Gretchen, my wife, was in the hospital recovering from surgery. All day she had been getting steadily weaker, more dizzy and her drains were filling with red liquid every 20 minutes. The nurse did not see anything wrong. In fact, the head nurse of the floor was preparing Gretchen to be discharged. I spoke up and said that she was dizzy and we lived on the second floor. How were we to get her up stairs when she is dizzy? She let us stay in the room.

Gretchen’s blood pressure was very low and then I had a bad feeling, I spoke up again and said to the nurse, “I am not a medical person, but her pressure is low, her drains are filling rapidly, she is dizzy, could there be something wrong? The nurse assured me that the dizziness and low blood pressure were because of the morphine she had that morning and drains filling were normal after surgery. It was then that I had a choice. I could accept her statements or I could have paid attention to what the light of God was telling me. I am sorry to say I chose to believe her, because I wanted everything to be alright.

An hour later I was talking with Gretchen and her head slumped over, I ran and shook her, patted her face and her eyes rolled back. I panicked and shouted for the nurse. About 20 people and Doctors came running in a hurry. Gretchen was dying. She had a bleed inside and was being rushed to surgery. The last thing I heard was the Surgeon say ” Stay with me Gretchen and I can fix this, stay with us!” The Doctor was right and he found the bleed, gave Gretchen 6 units of blood to replace what she had lost and things turned out fine.

I should have listened to the light of God. I should have insisted that a Doctor come and examine her. Afterward Many thoughts had sprung up in my mind. What if I had been in the rest room, down to dinner in the cafe, or even gone home for the night when Gretchen started to crash? She would have died because no one would have been in that room to see. I am so glad that I was there. That was my lesson in paying attention.

I was involved in a discussion once, about how can we know the difference between our own thoughts and God’s promptings? one answer was to practice listening. One woman asked how do we know if we create our own god, that says what we want to hear? The answer one person said makes so much sense, she said,” If God hates all the people you hate, you are creating your own god.”

Bless you friends In Love and Light, John]

[“The Voice of God” – that God still speaks, desires to speak to us/me as part and parcel of a continuing relationship with us/me – moves me to my core. Through the ages this is one of the more controversial subjects and yet is intregal to one’s relationship with God.

If I can encourage a person to speak to God, even if they just “hope” that God will reply to them – do I “need” to do more?

If I can let them know that God speaks, desires to speak to them and here’s some of the ways He speaks to me, how much more love could I show?

I desire, depend and delight in His Voice.]

[IN my experience God can be quite noisy, I would describe it as shouting, but only when I really can’t or won’t hear and not in the ways you get shouted at by friends, parents etc. I was once agonising over a job choice and praying earnestly and tearfully for a sign when I was reminded so strongly of Matthew 6. 28 – 30 that the only way I can describe it is as God shouting at me.

I wonder if he uses shouting/powerful expressions to get the attention of those unable or unwilling to hear or unused to his voice because I far more often experience his voice as a simple question, or a nudging as you describe. But he definitely shouts when he needs to.]

[My own experience of God’s voice is that, although it is certainly more in the realm of silence than of the din of the world, its silence can nonetheless be deafening. The more we train our listening away from the din and toward God – and the more we allow God to take us over, purify us and reside in us – the more “loud” His voice will be. I find more and more that the loudness of God overwhelms the loudness of the world. But we do have to let ourselves be changed in order to hear Him better. In the beginning it was as if I heard a voice from a distance; now I find that God often speaks to me very directly, even insistently, not from somewhere outside but from my own chest, my own skull.

One way in which I know it is God, it that it terrifies my sense of self, while at the same time comforting my Soul.

While someone shouting through a megaphone may crack through distraction and open one’s ears, God speaking directly into the soul cracks through illusion and opens everything to Light.]

[Before discovering this website a few months ago I’d about given up on finding any fellow Christians whose faith encompassed listening to/for that “still – silent voice”. Is it prideful of me to believe that having recieved the gift of the Holy Spirit I no longer need the ideologies of man? I’m not refering to the study of scripture but rather the doctrines of institutional religion meant to guide those still “deaf”. For me contemplative meditation (listening for and assimilating the Word within) comprises the greater part of my growth in Christ. I am blessed by the fellowship of this site.]

[I enjoy, as always, your blogs. I am in total agreement with this one. As proof, I offer a poem I wrote which contrasts how some Christians speak to me and how I experience God. May you enjoy it.

ALL THE VOICES OF GOD

Before there was anyone,
There was my God.

Bowing before Him, a paradox,
Lifting me up, up, up to
His throne of graciousness
Far from the earth,with my world in hand, reaching out:

Father?

And I, laying all before Him, wait while
With tender smile, He picks up one piece, another,
While I watch His expressions, movements,
Then knowing. Simply, simply knowing.
Peace that passeth all understanding.

Sent gently down again.

Where people with faces too close to recognize,
Beating their angel wings for emphasis,
Speak messages of heaven too loud for me to hear:
All the voices of God.